Border Fire (20 page)

Hearing masculine laughter to his left, he turned and saw some of his men watching him with broad, knowing grins on their faces. He had no difficulty interpreting their laughter and decided that if he wanted to spare his bride a surfeit of ribaldry, he would do well to devote the same concentration to his meal that she was devoting to hers.

Janet also heard the laughter, but she ignored it with practiced ease. Had she been oversensitive to the teasing of men in their cups, life in her brother’s home would have been a misery. She had long since managed to curb his men’s worst behavior, and she had been satisfied with the victories she had won without fretting over ones she had lost. If the men and women sharing her wedding feast wanted to make merry, she had no wish to stop them.

She had quickly realized that she would soon become a target for ribaldry if she sat blushing through the meal. That meant, however, that she had to force her thoughts away from what lay ahead. The whole marriage-bed business was a mystery, anyway. She knew the basics of human coupling, as anyone must who assumed that it bore some resemblance to similar activities in the world of farm animals. But from that point her imagination failed her. She had twice helped at birthings, despite her maiden state, so she knew where the baby came from. She also knew that she owed Sir Quinton some undefined duty, because her brother had spoken often enough of how he longed to see the day when she would have to submit to a husband. But beyond those vague bits of knowledge lay vast unexplored territory that did not bear thinking about in a roomful of watchful people.

Resolutely, she turned her thoughts to Broadhaugh. From Buccleuch’s description, she thought the place must be more refined than Brackengill if not as fine as Branxholme. Buccleuch’s seat was magnificent compared to any she had seen before. She had not visited often among the gentry, but she had seen the homes of several English notables, and Brackengill in its present state was the finest she had seen before Branxholme—except for Alnwick, of course. She had visited that magnificent residence some years before, when Hugh’s guardian had hoped that he could arrange a marriage for her with the powerful Percy family.

Branxholme was beyond anything else in splendor, though. Experts had woven the arras cloths on the walls of its hall. The stone chambers and corridors were immaculate, their furnishings polished, their fireplaces swept daily. The food was so good that she had already requested several of Margaret’s recipes.

“How far is Broadhaugh from here?” she asked Sir Quinton.

He smiled, and again she noted the warmth of his smile—and an increasing hunger in his look, which suggested that rather than being a man who had been eating steadily for more than a quarter hour, he had not eaten in a sennight. “Not far,” he said, and his voice seemed deeper than ever.

His intense look shot tingling sensations through the core of her body. She felt warmer and wished that someone would open a door to let in cooler air. She swallowed carefully, hoping she looked merely interested in what he would say.

“Are you in such a hurry to get home, madam?”

“I…I just wondered how long it would take us to ride there.” She wished that he would look back at his food. The way he was gazing at her made her skin feel hot, as if she had a fever.

“There will be dancing first,” he said.

“Aye, Margaret told me. Shall we have to ride home in the dark?”

“So you
are
in a hurry,” he said with satisfaction.

“Nay, I would not be so impolite as to want to hurry from hosts who have been so kind to me, but I would like to see my new home in daylight,” she said.

“Then you shall,” he agreed. “We will depart as soon as we can do so without offending anyone. We’ll have to wait for the runners to return, though.”

“I should think that such a race over rough terrain would be dangerous for them after eating and drinking so much.”

“Aye, perhaps, but Border lads thrive on danger.”

She looked steadily at him then. “Do you thrive on danger, sir?”

“You must know that I do.”

“Well, I have thought about that, you know, and I’m afraid that it must stop.”

He blinked. “What do you mean, lass?”

“I generally mean exactly what I say, sir. Now that we are married, you must stop raiding my friends and kinsmen. They’d never forgive me if I let you steal their livestock or burn their houses. It simply must stop.”

Sir Quinton stared at her, apparently rendered speechless.

Determined to be sure that she had made her point, Janet said evenly, “I would like you to give me your word, sir—your word as a Borderer.”

“Now see here, Jenny lass—” He broke off when the tempo of the music abruptly increased, and it grew louder.

Buccleuch stood up, waving a goblet. “A toast to the bridal pair,” he shouted.

Roaring, the men leapt to their feet, raising their mugs and goblets high.

Perforce, Sir Quinton rose to reply with his own toast to the company. Next he toasted his bride.

A myriad of other toasts followed until Janet was certain that everyone in the hall must be tipsy. Then the music changed again, and her husband held out a hand to her. “We must lead the dancing, lass. We’ll finish our talk anon.”

His voice was stern and his demeanor no longer that of the merry reiver of legend. Suddenly she was not so certain that she wanted to cross swords with him.

“High on a hill his castle stood,

With halls and tow’rs a height…”

O
UTLINED AGAINST THE SETTING
sun, Broadhaugh Tower’s crenellated battlements rose out of thick forestland near the village of Teviotdale, darkly crowning a craggy knoll atop a long, sloping ridge. Despite natural defenses provided by its setting, Janet thought the castle did not look particularly formidable.

She was riding for once like a proper lady on a sidesaddle borrowed from Margaret. Lined with sheepskin and possessing a high cantle, it was comfortable enough but not as stable as the Italian saddle Hugh had given her for her eighteenth birthday in the forlorn hope that she would put away her cross-saddle for good. She still wore her wedding dress beneath the warm cloak that she had worn from Brackengill. Both the cloak and her train draped over the pony’s haunches. Sir Quinton, riding beside her, also wore his wedding clothes beneath his thick cloak.

Behind them, a score of armed riders followed, but although their party had started out cheerfully with much laughter and ribaldry, they were mostly silent now except for the jingle of harness and the dull thudding of ponies’ hooves.

Janet had scarcely spoken to Sir Quinton since leaving Branxholme, for she was conscious of their escorts’ sharp ears. He had made no attempt to reawaken the conversation about his raiding, and both were tired after the long day. True to his word, he had brought her to Broadhaugh in time to see it by daylight, but the sun had already slipped below the horizon.

“It looks much smaller than Branxholme,” she said.

With a touch of amusement, Sir Quinton replied, “If Broadhaugh were larger than Branxholme, it would belong to Buccleuch instead of to me. Still, ’tis a proud house, lass, and one of the oldest in Scotland.”

“Margaret told me that once Queen Mary stayed here,” Janet said.

“Aye, she did. Before the middle of the thirteenth century Broadhaugh was a plain wooden pele tower overlooking vast stretches of Craik and Ettrick forests, but when the richer lords began changing to stone, our ancestor rebuilt Broadhaugh in the French fashion that was popular then. The original tower, the one nearest us on the crag, served as a royal hunting lodge for Alexander I.”

“When did the Queen of Scots stay here?”

“Thirty-one years ago, in the spring of 1565,” he said. “’Twas when she was involved with the fourth Earl of Bothwell. That old tower contains some of her embroidery,” he added. “I ken little about such things, but my mother always said that the queen produced fine work.”

“You have not said much about your mother before,” Janet said. “Margaret told me that your father is deceased, but she did not mention your mother. I assumed that both she and Buccleuch’s mother would be at our wedding, but neither was there. Are you at outs with her, sir?”

“Nay, but she lives with Lady Bothwell, and since, by royal command, the countess has lived in seclusion since Bothwell went into exile, my mother does not stir from her side. I visit them from time to time, but we are not close. I scarcely ever saw her when I was small. Do you enjoy needlework?” he asked abruptly.

“I enjoy fancy work when I can find time for it,” Janet said, adding frankly, “I have never thought my work above average, however. I did not have a mother to teach me as most young girls do, since mine died when I was quite small. Hugh likes my work, but I do not think him a judge of such things either.”

“Well, you needn’t fear that I shall be critical. You can have a free hand with the household, lass. I tidied up some in preparation of your coming, but Broadhaugh needs a woman’s touch.”

“Now I know why you did not fight harder to avoid marrying me,” she said, giving him a direct look from under her lashes. “You needed a housekeeper.”

He returned the look, and for a moment she thought that she had disconcerted him, but then he grinned. “Aye, that would be the reason,” he said.

Without thinking, she stuck out her tongue, then quickly faced forward, astonished at herself for having given in to such a childish impulse. Hearing him chuckle, she felt heat flood her cheeks and did not look at him again.

As they drew nearer the castle, she realized that although at first it had seemed to rise right out of the surrounding forest, anyone approaching had to cross either an expanse of barren land or the River Teviot. In the river’s present state of early-spring turbulence, it formed a formidable barrier, made even more so where it met a merry, tumbling burn at the foot of the castle’s craggy knoll.

“That’s Broadhaugh Water,” Sir Quinton said, raising his voice to be heard above the roiling water as he gestured toward the burn. “There’s a place on the Teviot not far above where they meet that is fine for swimming when it’s warmer.”

“It is beautiful here,” Janet said. Although she was accustomed to the bleak vistas of Bewcastle Waste and the Cumberland fells, she loved the lush greenery that served as cushion and backdrop to the harsh stone walls of Broadhaugh.

They crossed a gray-stone arched bridge and followed a narrow dirt track up to the main gates, which swung open before they reached them. Inside the bailey, she noted at once that it was smaller than even Brackengill’s, but someone with an artist’s eye had laid its cobblestones in a patchwork of color that she found pleasing even in the gray light of dusk. She wished that Hugh might have seen it before his laborers had collected the stones for Brackengill’s bailey.

It appeared to her that many of Sir Quinton’s men must have left the festivities at Branxholme before she and their master had, for besides the dozen or so who stood lined up to greet them, shouts brought others running from the two towers and from several outbuildings, as well.

“There are so many,” she said. “I did not know anyone left before we did.”

“They did not go to Branxholme,” he replied. “Surely you do not think that I would leave Broadhaugh unguarded on a day when everyone in two countries knew that I would be away.”

“I did not think about that,” she admitted. “Do you really think anyone would have dared attack your home on our wedding day?”

“What better day, lass?” His smile was sardonic. “I’d do such a thing myself, did I want to teach someone a lesson and could be certain that he and most of his company would be from home.”

“Are you suggesting that Hugh would do such a dastardly thing?”

“I meant nothing so particular. I have learned to be prepared for the worst, that’s all. You will learn to do the same. The English have made it a practice over the past two hundred years to sweep into Scotland with armies of two to ten thousand for the sheer enjoyment of wreaking havoc. They loot and destroy for no purpose other than destruction, and have done so since the days of Edward I.”

“I thought Buccleuch said that Elizabeth and James want peace.”

“Oh, aye, so they say when it pleases them to say it. Nonetheless, the English manage to invent a reason for doing whatever they choose to do.”

“And the Scots do not?”

His grin flashed again as he said, “I see that being married to you is going to test my wits, lass, but we will not fratch on our wedding day. Welcome to your new home. As I said, I told the lads to tidy up, but I hold no great hope for the result. Neither they nor I are skilled in the art.”

“The bailey looks tidy. I see no horse droppings on the cobbles.”

“Nay, I’d not allow that. The outbuildings are clean, too. We do not live in squalor, lass. We just lack a female’s skill for creating a comfortable nest.”

He dismounted and reached for her. As his hands clasped her around the waist beneath her cloak, she slipped her feet from the stirrups and caught up skirts and train in her left hand so they would not remain hanging embarrassingly high over the horse when he lifted her down.

Sir Quinton’s strength was evident in the ease and gentleness with which he lifted her to the ground, and as she looked up to thank him, her gaze met his and her body warmed in response to the renewed hunger she saw in his eyes. She wished then that she had thought to ask Margaret to explain certain matters to her. Although the opportunity to do so had arisen more than once, she had resisted revealing her ignorance. Now, recognizing his lust, she wished that she had thrown pride to the wind and had begged Margaret to describe every detail of what lay ahead.

“Your gown is soft, lassie,” he said quietly without taking his hands from her waist. “My fingers delight in touching it.”

Feeling uncharacteristically tongue-tied, and uncomfortably aware of the stares of his men, she wanted to pull away and run for the shelter of the castle. But she did not know where to go, and her feet did not seem to belong to her, in any case. The moment lengthened, and still she stared into his eyes. Her lips had parted, and she seemed to be breathing through her mouth, for her lips felt dry. She licked them and felt his hands tighten. Her right hand, still resting on his shoulder, slipped a little. The material of his cloak felt rough against her palm.